The December issue was the best I’ve seen in years of reading HCN. The topper was Lee van der Voo’s fabulous piece, “Betting the Ranch.” It was a complex and tremendously insightful story about the way big-shouldered meat distribution companies like Tyson Foods can outmuscle even giant ranchers and dominate the economics of the cattle-raising […]
Jeffrey Marshall
Posted inSeptember 2, 2019: In Bad Faith
Untrammeled coal country
I shed no tears for the looming demise of Wyoming’s coal industry (“With coal in free fall, Wyoming faces an uncertain future,” HCN, 8/5/19). Despite the Trump administration’s regulatory rollbacks and vocal cheerleading, coal is a dying industry — good news to environmentalists everywhere. Mining is a dirty, dangerous business for the miners themselves, and […]
Posted inAugust 31, 2018: The Big Threat to Bighorns
Political theater
I really enjoyed Elliott Woods’ detailed and perceptive account of the July Donald Trump rally in Great Falls, Montana (“Montanans sightsee at a political circus,” HCN, 8/6/18). Great piece of reporting and analysis of the spirit behind these rallies, which are nothing if not repetitive, reductive and as habit-forming to our president as any opioid. […]
Posted inJuly 21, 2014: On the Wild Edge
Predatory Ugliness
Jonathan Thompson’s terrific piece about the payday loan business (“A pimp in the family,” HCN, 6/23/14) spotlights some of the ugliest elements of the financial services business. Predatory lenders have found a lucrative niche in the largely unregulated world that flourishes in poor communities with immediate cash needs – like Native American reservations. Indeed, as […]
Posted inDecember 23, 2013: Beauty or Beast
The peace broker
Common Ground on Hostile Turf: Stories from an Environmental MediatorLucy Moore216 pages, softcover: $19.99.Island Press, 2013. Most of us have attended public meetings where emotions run uncomfortably high. Each side is firmly, sometimes even fiercely, entrenched; voices are raised, tempers frayed. People hurl verbal grenades at each other, refusing to concede an inch. Actual communication […]